The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

In later centuries, several European visitors would also leave us with narratives that are useful windows into their times. Again, we need to be careful when using their writings as they are, with a few notable exceptions, often systematically biased against the Hindu and Islamic cultures that they encounter. By the end of the eighteenth century, these narratives also contain an additional layer of racism. Thus, when European colonists came across the ruins of Great Zimbabwe in southern Africa in the nineteenth century, they simply assumed that the Africans were incapable of building it. The ruins, therefore, were interpreted as a sign that light-skinned colonists must have conquered southern Africa in ancient times, and there were even attempts to connect it to King Solomon and Queen Sheba. As historian John Reader puts it, ‘This view of African history compounded a prevailing belief that whatever was commendable in black Africa must have been introduced from somewhere else by lighter-skinned and (by implication) more intelligent people. . . . The idea was reinforced by colonial regimes and since independence the elites themselves have seized every opportunity to perpetuate it.’